Than Don (Gatasaro Bhikkhu), a kalyana-mitta, friend of mine here in Las Vegas has just ordained! He has been married, raised kids, all grown-up, done everything that needs to be done, worked in many professions including black jack dealer as one of his most recent ones.

Now he is a monk! I have known him for some time. He has attended Dhamma programs at my center and he was greatly inspired by Ajahn Brahm when Ajahn Brahm came to Las Vegas and led a program at my center.

Bhikkhus, if you develop and make much this one thing, it invariably leads to weariness, cessation, appeasement, realization and extinction. What is it? It is recollecting the Enlightened One. If this single thing is recollected and made much, it invariably leads to weariness, cessation, appeasement, realization and extinction.Anguttara-Nikaya: Ekanipata: Ekadhammapali: PañhamavaggaBuddhanussatiSCVSMVMMBS

He turns his mind away from those phenomena, and having done so, inclines his mind to the property of deathlessness: 'This is peace, this is exquisite — the resolution of all fabrications; the relinquishment of all acquisitions; the ending of craving; dispassion; cessation; Unbinding.' (Jhana Sutta - Thanissaro Bhikkhu translation)

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Then the Blessed One, picking up a tiny bit of dust with the tip of his fingernail, said to the monk, "There isn't even this much form...feeling...perception...fabrications...consciousness that is constant, lasting, eternal, not subject to change, that will stay just as it is as long as eternity." (SN 22.97)

Thank you for the welcome. I am now a one month-old monk. This has been one of the best things I've ever done. It's been a great experience so far, even if the most challenging. I congratulate you all on finding the right path. A wonderful life.

I wish you a long and storied time in the robes May you achieve nibbana in no time at all!

This has made me feel quite happy - I guess that's what you could call Mudita.

mettaJack

"For a disciple who has conviction in the Teacher's message & lives to penetrate it, what accords with the Dhamma is this:'The Blessed One is the Teacher, I am a disciple. He is the one who knows, not I." - MN. 70 Kitagiri Sutta

Gatasaro Bhikku wrote:Thank you for the welcome. I am now a one month-old monk. This has been one of the best things I've ever done. It's been a great experience so far, even if the most challenging. I congratulate you all on finding the right path. A wonderful life.

What an inspiring career move, Bhante. May I ask you where are you ordained? I think I see some thai script there.

PS: Hopefully you cope well with the fact that you're most likely going to be known as "that black jack dealer bhikkhu" for all internet eternity.

Gatasaro Bhikku wrote:Thank you for the welcome. I am now a one month-old monk. This has been one of the best things I've ever done. It's been a great experience so far, even if the most challenging. I congratulate you all on finding the right path. A wonderful life.

Kilanta, I was ordained in Turner, Oregon at Wat Buddha Oregon. The first picture is of my abbot, Ajahn Chalee, one of the most respected teachers of Vipassana meditation, and the other is Ajahn Suben, abbot of Wat Buddha Oregon. My upacaya was the president of the Thai Bhikkus USA Association, so I got that going for me.

This past weekend we had a program at my place. I led the small group in meditation and dedicated the event to S. N. Goenka and we did a vedanā-meditation in respect to him. Then Bhikkhu Gatasaro came and gave a Dhamma talk.